Family Friday (vol. 43): Brii, 6 Month Photos, and Sleep Training

As soon as I said we hadn’t had a cancellation with our daycare due to snow – BAM. I will echo my friend’s comment on Facebook, “Maybe meteorologists should be paid based on accuracy…”. We didn’t get a ton of snow, but after a very mild winter and come mid-March, cue FREAK OUT. Mark was blowing snow on the driveway while I mass blasted our various babysitter options with pleas for help.

Who pulled through? Brii. She’s our new right hand gal.

What do I call Brii? My savior? A mother’s helper? A very part-time nanny. It doesn’t really matter. She’s amazing and two weeks in, my #1 concern in life is that she’s not going to be around forever.

She does it all – laundry, lunches, pick-up, clean-up, babysitting, dinner prep, dog loving. She’s…perfect. And she came at the most perfect time, just as I was gifted a second department at work. With Brii in our lives, I have a certain sense of calm and I only hope she knows how much we really appreciate all that she does for us.

On an unrelated note, we got 6 month photos of Piper taken a few weekends ago. We got the teaser image of the two girls with the dog and I’ve been stalking my email for the rest. They’re adorable and so much thanks to our photographer. It was worth leaving the photo shoot SWEATING (and probably swearing). Wrangling a dog and two kids — one ornery toddler and one tired baby — to cooperate for a photo shoot is an exhausting task.

Speaking of exhausting…I decided on Wednesday night that it was time to Ferberize and sleep train that little Piper Reese. At times, her sleep has shown signs of hope, but quickly regresses. She slept through the night on January 24th and since that time, we’ve had 2-3 wake-ups a night, on average. There are times I’m going through the motions of life, but I really feel…fuzzy. Sleep deprivation is such a doozie.

So on Wednesday, she went down around 7:30pm and woke around 1:40am. I nursed and laid her back down. She was up again at 3:55am. Knowing she wasn’t hungry, I Ferberized. I had studied up on my approach and decided I would go in after 5 minutes, soothe without picking up and repeat, as needed, after 7 minutes and 10 minutes (repeat every 10 minutes, as needed). We made it to just the first 10 minute crying fit and before going in for a 4th time, she lulled herself to sleep (lulled…cried…whatever). SO HARD.

Naturally, I didn’t fall asleep because I was waiting for her cries and come 5am, she had been asleep 30 minutes and was back to crying. But just a bit. I never went in and she returned to sleep until 6:20am. That said, I got no sleep from 3:55am on.

Thursday night was a huge improvement. She went to bed at 8pm and slept until 3:08am! I nursed and that was it. She got up at 6:45am! For some reason I wasn’t left feeling rested, but I thought that was huge success after 1 night of sleep training.

Last night, night 3, she went down at 8pm and was up at 1:09am. I was undecided as to whether or not to feed her because normally a wake-up that early in the night would result in at least 1 additional wake-up. I gave her about 7 minutes to fuss and cry some and ended up feeding her. She went down until 6:25am.

While the goal is ZERO wake-ups, of course, 1 wake-up is a huge improvement and I do think continuing to Ferberize her and 1. not give that immediate reaction to her cries and 2. consoling without nursing or picking up when I know she isn’t truly hungry will continue to improve her sleep. I hope. We’ll see 🙂 I am feeling more rested, however. Now, I just need to get my butt to bed a bet earlier!